|
I feel
safer in the DC suburbs than I did in London, but that's entirely an
artefact of where I lived there, not too far away from "the front line" in the
drugs war (Landor Road in Brixton, about three blocks away from where I
lived). The truth is that in both countries, as long as you steer clear of
certain microcultures (for example nightlife in central Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
where drunken brawls are part of the culture), you will avoid violence.
You'll only be set upon by a street tough if you're in the wrong part of town at
the wrong time (I only lived there because the rent was incredibly cheap, and
took the rational decision to expose myself to a greater - though still small -
risk of violence in order to save a great deal of money every month). If
you fight back faced with a street tough, the courts won't put you in jail,
unless you kill him deliberately. Tim has provided plenty of evidence on
this. They'll certainly look askance on you if you use a gun, but that's
because you're probably breaking the law in the first place, so the police and
courts are dealing with two law breakers, not a law-abiding citizen and a
vicious criminal (the question of whether that's just is another
matter).
Gun
violence is, thankfully, still very, very rare in the UK, just as it was when
guns were commonplace. Although, as I've said before, it is almost certain
that historic police-recorded crime figures have seriously underreported the
level of crime in the UK. It may be that there was no "golden age" of
crime-free Britain. Yet ever-increasing firearms restrictions since 1920
do not appear to have made Britain significantly safer.
Overall, I'd still rather walk about in Brixton than in
Anacostia.
Iain
Murray
|
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
